Numerous organizations and companies need to valuate their clients in order to provide services and/or incentives tailored to different clients' ranks. For purpose of illustration only, the following description is provided for players of online poker games. Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that certain teachings of the present disclosure are applicable in a similar manner to players of other online games as well as to clients of financial companies, content distribution companies, etc.
The problems of valuating a player have been recognized in the prior art and various techniques of calculating a player's value have been developed to provide solutions. Known in the art solutions of valuating a player include solutions based on attributing all the value to the person who generates the actual rake and solutions based on attributing all the value on deposits and net losses.
In online poker, the money made by the operators is equal to the amount that is taken off the table at the end of a hand or—in poker tournaments—the entry fee. Some of the known in the art methods look at rake only, and they are agnostic of where the money used to pay the rake actually came from. Some other methods known in the art look, alternatively or additionally, at the net win/net loss of the players participating in the hand.
For any single poker hand, the following formula is true when summed up over all players who took part in the hand: Sum (Bets−Wins)=Sum (Rake). This means that one can actually vary the formula for calculating player value for individual players in such a way that the total sum is still equal to the total rake.
Player's value (PV) can be calculated by PVc formula (also referred to hereinafter also as “conventional rake (CR) based on activity” or “conventional rake formula”):PVc=c*Rake+(1−c)*(Bets−Wins); with 0≦c≦1  (1).
For c=0, Player Value=(Bets−Wins)=Net Loss. For c=1, Player Value=Rake. By choosing a value for c between these two extremes, one can create a player valuation formula that lies in between these two extremes.
By comparing Rake with (Bets−Wins) across entire operators or player populations, one can also assess the type of players and the type of operators and their contribution to the network.
Other known in the art solutions can combine the Net Loss analyses above with assigning a “score” to each player. At the end of the hand, the score of all players is compared and the rake taken in this hand is then assigned to these players, based on the play of the hand and also based on their score. Thus, a higher proportion of the rake is assigned to players who otherwise show characteristics that are deemed beneficial from a game point of view. For example, a player that has accumulated large lifetime losses will be attributed a higher proportion of the rake than a player who is a net winner.
Another known in the art solution is to encourage a behaviour change in operators on a network by having monthly bonuses and/or penalties based on certain underlying operator wide KPIs (key performance indicators).
General Description
In accordance with certain aspects of the presently disclosed subject matter, there is provided a method of valuating a client in a computerized on-line service system comprising a processor operatively coupled to a memory storing a plurality of records informative of monetary chunks, each record informative of the monetary amount of the respective monetary chunk and tagged with a client who owns the respective monetary chunk. The method comprises providing by the processor in cooperation with the memory: identifying all clients directly involved in a monetary event; for each identified directly involved client Ci, searching the stored plurality of records for all records informative of monetary chunks tagged with the client Ci as an owner and associating with the client Ci a virtual account Ai, the virtual account Ai being informative of all monetary chunks in an ownership of the client Ci, thereby giving rise to a plurality of virtual accounts associated with the identified directly involved clients, wherein each monetary chunk in the virtual account is further tagged with a depositor client who introduced the respective monetary chunk into the service system and with respective timestamp; identifying every client tagged as a depositor client to at least one monetary chunk corresponding to at least one virtual account of the plurality of virtual accounts, thereby giving rise to a plurality of clients indirectly involved in the event; and valuating one or more clients directly or indirectly involved in the event, wherein a value of each given client is calculated with consideration of all monetary chunks corresponding to the plurality of virtual accounts and tagged to the given client as a depositor client.
The on-line service system can be an e-commerce system, a game system, a social network platform, advertizing system, etc. By way of non-limiting examples, the monetary event can be an e-auction, a game event, a peer-to-peer event associated with monetary transaction, etc.
In accordance with other aspects of the presently disclosed subject matter, there is provided a method of online valuating a poker player in a computerized game system comprising a processor operatively coupled to a memory storing a plurality of records informative of monetary chunks, each record informative of the monetary amount of the respective chunk and tagged with a player who owns the respective monetary chunk. The method comprises providing by the processor in cooperation with the memory: identifying all players directly involved in a poker hand; for each identified player Pi directly involved in the poker hand, searching the stored plurality of records for all records informative of monetary chunks tagged with the player Pi as an owner and associating with the player Pi a virtual account Ai, the virtual account Ai being informative of all monetary chunks in an ownership of the player Pi, thereby giving rise to a plurality of virtual accounts associated with the identified players directly involved in the poker hand, wherein each monetary chunk in the virtual account is further tagged with a depositor player who introduced the respective monetary chunk into the game system and with respective timestamp; identifying every player tagged as a depositor player to at least one monetary chunk corresponding to at least one virtual account of the plurality of virtual accounts, thereby giving rise to a plurality of players indirectly involved in the poker hand; calculating, for each given player of the plurality of players indirectly involved in the poker hand, a value corresponding to a source-based rake (SBR) to be attributed to such player in consideration of a monetary amount invested into a pot of the poker hand and tagged with the given player as a depositor; and calculating, for each given player directly or indirectly involved in the poker hand, a value on rake (APV_RAKE), whereinAPV_RAKE=C*PLAYER_RAKE_ACTIVITY+(1−C)*SBR,
wherein PLAYER_RAKE_ACTIVITY is a value corresponding to a rake to be attributed to the given player in consideration of a monetary amount invested into a pot of the poker hand and tagged with the player as an owner, and where C is configurable parameter, 0≦C≦1.
The method can further comprise providing by the processor in cooperation with the memory: identifying all players directly involved in a poker tournament; associating with each identified player directly involved in the poker tournament a corresponding virtual account, thereby giving rise to a plurality of virtual accounts associated with the identified players directly involved in the poker tournament; identifying every player tagged as a depositor player to at least one monetary chunk corresponding to at least one virtual account of the plurality of virtual accounts, thereby giving rise to a plurality of players indirectly involved in the poker tournament; calculating, for each given player of the plurality of players indirectly involved in the poker tournament, a value corresponding to a source-based fee (SBF) to be attributed to such player in consideration of a monetary amount invested into a fee of the poker tournament and tagged with the given player as a depositor; and calculating, for each given player directly or indirectly involved in the poker tournament, a value on fee (APV_FEE), whereinAPV_FEE=K*PLAYER_FEE_ACTIVITY+(1×K)*SBR,
wherein PLAYER_FEE_ACTIVITY is a value corresponding to a fee to be attributed to the given player in consideration of a monetary amount invested into a fee of the poker tournament and tagged with the player as an owner, and where K is configurable parameter, 0≦K≦1.
The method can further comprise providing by the processor in cooperation with the memory calculating a value of a player during a valuation period by summing all APV_RAKE and APV_FEE values calculated for the player for all poker hands and poker tournaments where the player was, directly or indirectly, involved during the valuation period.
In accordance with other aspects of the presently disclosed subject matter, there is provided a management system capable of online valuating a client in a computerized service system, the management system comprising a processor operatively coupled to a memory configured to store a plurality of records informative of monetary chunks, each record informative of the monetary amount of the respective monetary chunk, the processor configured: to tag each record of the plurality of records with a client who owns the respective monetary chunk, with a depositor client who introduced the respective monetary chunk into the service system and with respective timestamp; for each client directly involved in a monetary event, to generate a respective virtual account, thereby giving rise to a plurality of virtual accounts associated with the clients directly involved in the monetary event, wherein generating a virtual account to a given client comprises: i. searching the plurality of records for all records informative of monetary chunks tagged with the given client as an owner; ii. associating with the given client a virtual account being informative of all monetary chunks in an ownership of the given client, the virtual account being further informative of respective depositor clients and timestamp; to parse the plurality of virtual accounts to identify every client tagged as a depositor client to at least one monetary chunk corresponding to at least one virtual account of the plurality of virtual accounts, thereby giving rise to a plurality of clients indirectly involved in the event; and to valuate one or more clients directly or indirectly involved in the event, wherein a value of each given client is calculated with consideration of all monetary chunks corresponding to the plurality of virtual accounts and tagged to the given client as a depositor client.